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2Th_1:10. Further, with this explanation 2Th_1:10 agrees best, since in it, as the counterpart to 2Th_1:9, the discourse is not so much of a glorification of Christ as of a glorification of Christians—a glorification certainly which necessarily reflects on Christ Himself as its producer.
ὅταν ἔλθῃ ] when He shall have come, a statement of the time of δίκην τίσουσιν , 2Th_1:9. Schott less simply unites it with διδόντος ἐκδίκησιν , 2Th_1:8.
ἐνδοξασθῆναι ] the infinitive of design. See Winer, p. 284 [E. T. 399]. The ἅγιοι are not the attending angels (Macknight, Schrader), but Christians. ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις αὐτοῦ does not, however, import through His saints (Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Kypke, II. p. 341, Vater, Pelt, Schott, and others), nor among them, but in them, so that the glorification of Christians becomes a glorification of Christ Himself. So also Christ is admired in all believers, because the admiration of the blessedness to which believers have been exalted has as its consequence an admiration of Christ as the Creator of that blessedness.
ὅτι ἐπιστεύθη … ἐφʼ ὑμᾶς ] is a parenthesis:[39] for our testimony brought to you has been believed. This is occasioned by πιστεύσασιν . It is designed to bring forward the certainty that also the Thessalonians belong to the ΠΙΣΤΕΎΣΑΝΤΕς . In a peculiar—intermixing much that is strange—and unnatural manner Ewald: “As the subject particularly treats of the truth of the apostolic testimony concerning divine things (!), or whether the gospel, as the apostles and first witnesses proclaimed it, will or will not one day be confirmed in its entire contents and promises by God Himself at the last judgment (?), so Paul summarizes the chief contents (?) of that glory and admiration in a lively reference to his immediate readers directly in words which one might almost then exclaim: ‘Our testimony among you was verified (?).’ And it is as if the apostle had put here this somewhat strange short expression, the rather because he has said directly before that God (?) will be admired in those who believed, as if a verification or complete confirmation (?) of the contents of faith must at last justly correspond to the human faith regarding them.”
τὸ μαρτύριον ἡμῶν ] our testimony, i.e. the testimony proclaimed by us. Really different, neither from μαρτύριον τοῦ Χριστοῦ , 1Co_1:6 : the testimony whose subject is Christ; nor from ΜΑΡΤΎΡΙΟΝ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ , 1Co_2:1 : the testimony which God published through the apostles concerning Christ. To limit, with Bretschneider, ΜΑΡΤΎΡΙΟΝ to the instructions of the apostle concerning the advent of Christ contained in the First Epistle, instead of taking it entirely generally in the sense of ΚΉΡΥΓΜΑ or ΕὐΑΓΓΈΛΙΟΝ , is rendered impossible by the relation of ὍΤΙ ἘΠΙΣΤΕΎΘΗ to ΠΙΣΤΕΎΣΑΣΙΝ .
ἘΦʼ ὙΜᾶς ] is connected with ΤῸ ΜΑΡΤΎΡΙΟΝ ἩΜῶΝ into one idea; and hence the article ΤΌ , whose repetition before ἘΦʼ ὙΜᾶς might have been expected, is omitted. See Winer, p. 123 [E. T. 169]. Comp. on ἘΠΊ with ΜΑΡΤΎΡΙΟΝ , Luk_9:5. Ingenuous, but erroneous, Bengel: ἘΦʼ ὙΜᾶς denotes: ad vos usque, in occidente.
ἘΝ Τῇ ἩΜΈΡᾼ ἘΚΕΊΝῌ ] belongs not to ἜΛΘῌ (Zeger, Pelt, Olshausen), but to ΘΑΥΜΑΣΘῆΝΑΙ , whilst by it the indication of time, ὍΤΑΝ ἜΛΘῌ , is resumed. The Peshito, likewise Pelagius, John Damascenus, Estius, Lucius Osiander, Menochius, Cornelius a Lapide, Grotius, Harduin, Storr, Koppe, Krause, Rosenmüller, Nösselt, Flatt, Baumgarten-Crusius, and others, not assuming a parenthesis, unite ἘΝ Τῇ ἩΜΈΡᾼ ἘΚΕΊΝῌ with the directly preceding, either with ΜΑΡΤΎΡΙΟΝ or with ἘΠΙΣΤΕΎΘΗ . The interpretations resulting from this mode of connection vary much from each other; but are all arbitrary, inasmuch as, on the one hand, in order to preserve the statement of time in ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ , one feels himself constrained to consider the aorist ἐπιστεύθη as placed for the future, and thus to alter the import of the verb (will be authenticated); or, on the other hand, in order to preserve ἐπιστεύθη in the sense of the aorist, one has recourse to the expedient of construing ἘΝ Τῇ ἩΜΈΡᾼ ἘΚΕΊΝῌ as the objective statement belonging to ΜΑΡΤΎΡΙΟΝ , in the sense of ΠΕΡῚ Τῆς ἩΜΈΡΑς ἘΚΕΊΝΗς .
But wherefore did Paul add ἘΝ Τῇ ἩΜΈΡᾼ ἘΚΕΊΝῌ after the sentence beginning with ὍΤΙ ? Perhaps only for the sake of parallelism. But possibly also Calvin is correct when he says: “repetit in die illa … Ideo autem repetit, ut fidelium vota cohibeat, ne ultra modum festinent.”
[39] Certainly otherwise Hofmann. According to him, ὅτι ἐπιστεύθη τὸ μαρτύριον ἡμῶν ἐφʼ ὑμᾶς is to be added as a reason to ἀνταποδοῦναι ὑμῖν ἄνεσιν μεθʼ ἡμῶν , ver. 6 f. (!). But this is not yet enough. Besides the statement of design, ἵνα ὑμᾶς ἀξιώσῃ κ . τ . λ ., ver. 11, is made also to depend on ἐπιστεύθη τὸ μαρτύριον ἡμῶν ἐφʼ ὑμᾶς ; to this statement of design also ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ belongs; this is placed before ἵνα for the sake of emphasis, and εἰς ὃ καὶ προσευχόμεθα πάντοτε περὶ ὑμῶν forms a mere parenthesis—suppositions which are certainly worthy of an exegesis like that of Hofmann, but are only possible to it.